REVIEW: Sister Act@ The Palace, Manchester

The hit musical, Sister Act, returns to Manchester this week by popular demand, with X-Factor star Alexandra Burke reprising her role as the nun on the run.

The plot is largely the same as the film, made famous by Whoopi Goldberg and Maggie Smith – a night club singer witnesses a murder and is forced to flee and seek refuge in a convent where she ends up attempting to whip a tortuously inept choir into shape.

With the injection of some new songs, dance routines choreographed by Craig Revell Horwood, this should be a recipe for a top notch show.

Maybe the half hour delay due to a technical problem, affected the performers, because I couldn’t help feeling there was something missing in the first half. All the ingredients seemed to be there but they didn’t quite gel. The start was a bit flat, and some of the jokes didn’t quite work – especially in the interplay between the three gangster characters.

That said, the show certainly picked up after the interval when the energy levels were ramped up; and there is still much to praise in this production. Alexandra Burke is a class act, showing her aptitude for comic acting as well as an undeniable ability to belt out a tune.

The solos where superb, particularly from Karen Mann as the mother superior and John Robyns’ lovelorn cop “sweaty Eddie”.

So a mixed bag, but there no problems that can’t be ironed out in subsequent performances.